You hear a lot of long-legged claims in the pen. But this one stretched even my imagination. The plaintiff was a 20-year-old cauldron of fury we called Cowboy Dan, a recent graduate of the juvenile justice system. Only eight months prior, he had arrived at Kent maximum-security penitentiary — the destination location for British Columbia’s chronically deviant. Since his arrival, there had been one murder (and at least four credible attempts at No. 2), a flame-filled mini-riot, and a two-week lockdown search for a handgun. Overdoses and suicide attempts were common enough that they barely rated a raisin on the daily grapevine. Short of a Connecticut kindergarten, how could any adolescent abode be more devilish than Kent?

“I was 12 the first time they threw me into YDC,” Dan said. “You see me now? Imagine me at 12.”

Not an easy exercise. The five-foot-five villain-in-training looked like he still hadn’t been bar mitzvahed. Cerulean eyes, tussled blond locks — the duty officer must have thought he was booking Macaulay Culkin.

“My first night there, they held me down and stuck a piece of licorice up my ass. Then they made me eat it. I nearly choked to death. So the next day I stabbed one of them in the neck with a Bic pen. That cost me another six months in closed custody.”

“The worst part, though, was the hole. If staff felt like it, they just wouldn’t feed you — for the whole three days you were there. Then, if they got bored, they’d bring one meal tray for two kids, open our cell doors and make us fight for it. Unless of course you just sucked them off. Then you might get a smoke, too. The older kids would rather fight than suck — at least the guys. The girls were already hookers, so for them it was no big deal.”

Catamite dungeon-keepers? Children gang-raping children? Gladiator school for Kraft Dinner? Sounds like an intriguing prequel to The Hunger Games. And it just might explain why YDC alumni are some of the most dangerous men — and women — in the adult prison system today.

I guess that’s what tickled my irony bone most last March, when the Canadian government passed legislation to plant more Canadian kids inside that fifth circle of hell called Youth Detention. According to the Canadian Bar Association, recent changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act mean that children can now enjoy lengthy sleepovers at the rape-factory for indiscretions as trivial as a schoolyard fisticuff, possession of a stolen credit card, forging their parents’ signature, theft or public mischief. Which, if you think about it, probably makes sense on some level. Various studies (or at least those commissioned by a now-defunct Canadian political party whose name rhymed with brainstorm) have shown that the line between juvenile graffiti and crimes against humanity is thinner than most non-Conservative voters can imagine. So if little Dick (or Jane) has the cheek to use your hacked credit card number for an iTunes shopping spree, then let them eat … cake. Or at least let them fight for it, Lord of the Flies-style, in a dim-lit segregation unit. That’ll learn ‘em. Besides, it’s probably great for the economy.

In the week leading to parliament’s omnibus crime bill vote last year, CBC’s Rex Murphy fielded phone-ins on his weekly radio rant, Cross Country Check-up. “But it’s our children they’re locking up!” said one obviously soft-on-kids caller. Hopefully she’s right. I mean, where’s the tax revenue in locking down the spawn of visiting Chinese oil barons? But more Canadian kids behind bars — that has to give some kick to the GDP. With their kids mouldering away in Satan’s sandbox, parents of imprisoned children can only have more disposable income. They’ll use more made-in-Canada pharmaceuticals (for all those sleepless nights), and carry bigger phone bills (as every bawling call from Juvie hall is a collect one). And all that triple-taxed income buys a lot of (taxable) TV advertising, people. So pardon me for being practical, but if a few dozen prepubescent car thieves have to taste state-sponsored sodomy so that more honest Canadians (victims!) can learn of Laura Secord’s pre-confectionery adventures, then I don’t see the problem. And if you do, then you’re probably with the child pornographers anyhow.

“Who is Cowboy Dan?” Kaukaughe asked this morning, as he stood behind me reading this column. When I told him Dan’s real name, he gave a little pony-snort. “You know he’s doing life now?” That I do. And according to the papers, there were three bodies — all of them formerly “known to police.” I wonder if they knew anything about licorice.

I.M GreNada is the pen name of a Canadian prisoner who has been serving life for murder since 1994. The people he writes about are real, but their names have been changed. You can read more about him at theincarceratedinkwell.ca.

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